Bite Your Tongue
by LovelyLadyAnne
Summary: Noah Matthews is a farm boy, spending his days laboring in the fields and trying to hide his calloused hands from the neighborhood hottie, Sammi. But when an out-of-the-ordinary redhead shows up in his barn, his simple little world is turned upside down.
1. The Mysterious Dozing Girl

I didn't think there could be a nickname for me.

I was a farm boy, hands perpetually scored with the remnants of blisters that had gotten infected and scarred. My hands were shoved inside gloves nowadays, hidden from anyone and everyone, even Sammi, the pretty girl who lived on the farm just three miles down the road. She approached me once, hands on her tiny little hips, her fingertips nearly touching the end of her skimpy little denim shorts. Her stomach was bare, since her orange jacket of matching denim was tied right beneath her breasts, the tell-tale slash in her upper body telling me that Sammi wasn't as flat-chested as I thought.

At the sight of the gloriously under clad female, my hands unconsciously dove for my gloves and yanked them on, while I blinked innocently at my neighbor, watching her erupt in a fit of giggles at my lopsided smile, chestnut hair swishing as she did.

"So Noah…" She trilled, taking a step closer to me and leaning against the barn walls, brushing a twist of hair from over her face and smashing her skinny little arm against mine. "How have your cows been?" I knew she was stalling, since Sammi didn't care a whit about cows and was more interested in flirting.

"Oh…fine." I muttered, distracted by the two bouncing lumps on her bosom. For the love of God, everywhere I looked, I saw _those_ behemoths jiggling alluringly like she had super-glued giant Jell-O cups right onto her formerly microscopic ding-a-lings. I blinked and tried to focus on her sapphire eyes. "One of them had a calf last week."

"Really?" Sammi squealed and grabbed my arm, squishing her jahoobies right up against me and giving my hand a little tug every word she said. "Show me, show me, show me, show me!"

"Alright, alright, I'll go see if she's in the barn. But I doubt it, the mama hates it in there. Usually she's in the pasture." I peeled Sammi off me and motioned downward with my gloved hands, telling her to stay there though I doubted she understood.

The moment I opened the door I shut it.

I jogged back to Sammi and shrugged apologetically. "Sam, she's not in there and one of the horses is hungry. You'll have to go home now." I was sure it was a horrible excuse but Sammi seemed to understand, slowly backing up towards her truck. "Oh, okay…bye, Noah!" I watched her wopbopaloobops swing like pendulums one more time, before dashing back to the barn and squeezing into the darkened room.

There was a little shape on the floor, small but long-limbed and willowy. A wild crown of scarlet ringlets were splayed out on the dusty wood floor and the position was floppy, as if she had just collapsed right where she was. She was face-down, both legs bent at an angle and slid next to each other, though one knee was less bent then the other. One arm was thrown casually on the ground, almost beseechingly, and the other lay in front of her with her forehead pressed against the back of her wrist.

At first I thought it was some kind of robber, like a pretty bait in some action movie and a guy in a black suit would jump out and shoot me thirty-seven times in the chest and then as I died the girl would drop a playing card on me or something cheesy like that.

But then I noticed that someone who faked being asleep would not be in that uncomfortable position, and hadn't moved an inch from the moment I'd laid eyes on her. "Um…hello? You do know you're on private property, right? I could shoot you and the police wouldn't give a shit."

No reaction whatsoever. She lay there like a rag doll tossed on the ground by an angry little girl. I grabbed a rake from a hook on the wall, and prodded her arm gingerly with one spike. The skin bounced back harmlessly, and she didn't even twitch a finger. I poked her harder, and still nothing happened. Finally I just whacked her in the back of the head with the web of tin spines. "Hey, sleepy-head, want to get arrested?"

I frowned. Damn, she was _out_. Carefully I took a few steps toward her, hoping to God she wouldn't reach out and grab my ankle and pull me into hell or something. But she did nothing. The Mysterious Dozing Girl laid there limply, and it dawned on me that she wasn't a threat.

Slowly I prodded her in the shoulder, then stuck my middle and index finger underneath her wild curls and searched for that vein in her neck. I found it, throbbing faintly at a slow, waltz-like tempo. But it was obvious to me she wasn't waking up anytime soon.

Then, I pushed her side so she flipped over and I saw the front half of her body.

She was wearing an light brown over-sized t-shirt with a darker brown cartoon owl on it, a speech bubble next to it reading _'I WILL EAT YOUR YOUNG.' _Dark denim jeans with a rip in the knee and chartreuse paint spattered all over them covered her legs, and black and white sneakers were tied loosely in shaggy, frayed bows.

I tilted my head at her fashion choice but glanced at her face that had been unveiled by the crimson curls. Her face was childish, with huge doe-eyes shrouded with bruises underneath them, high cheekbones, and a sharp, defiant chin. Her jawline was severe, her nose adorably curved at the edge and her neck was long. But what I really noticed was the trickling wound at the side of her forehead, at her hairline.

I could tell it was at least two days old and it was still bleeding, which worried me. I flipped away the hair and found little dark purple bruises next to it, like someone had stabbed her really hard with a short, blunt knife. It looked fairly deep, and her complexion was scarily pale and chalky.

As I gingerly pressed two fingers to the wound, a shudder ripped through her fragile body and her darkened eyelids fluttered open. Glassy green irises flecked with gold swiveled around dizzily, and then were shrouded once more as her eyes flickered closed once again.

"Uh…are you awake?"

Obviously not. She had fainted again. Maybe it was just a reflex, maybe my fingertips touching her skull just make her brain freak out and she was in a coma or something. But something told me that by the way her gaze swung to look at me that she wasn't.


	2. MDG's Backstory

a note from birdie;;

i'm going to be updating this a lot, sometimes two chapters at a time. this one's short because it's a filler about the mysterious dozing girl. so yeah. i own mdg and noah and charlie, who you'll meet later. :3 but everything else belongs to mister riordan.

Her feet thudded against the dry ground, ebony sneakers with the messy ties digging into the tough, rocky soil and coarse grass. She exchanged a fleeting glance with a dark brown cow spotted with white, a small black calf frolicking at her hooves. The scarlet-haired girl turned away, shaking her head and sprinting off once again. She knew he was still chasing, still jogging at his languid pace just tickled pink to chop the head off a little godling with his spiked cudgel.

The girl looked behind her, and screamed.

Or at least she thought she screamed; no sound came out. Not even a breath. The cry deep in her lungs was knocked loose and dissipated as the giant creature that her fear-blurred mind managed to identify as some kind of giant raised his burly arms, brandishing his cudgel with the shiny silver spikes. The girl cringed and scooted away, but not before he swung and one little spike found a spot right on the side of her head, scarily near her temple.

A shriek died on her lips as she felt herself falling, reaching her hands out to steady herself but only succeeding in making her balance even worse and making her land even harder on the cold ground. She began sobbing, both in pain and in fear, and blood dripped through her crimson curls and down her cheeks. "Oh Gods…stop, please…"

But it got on it's knees, lowered itself, raised the cudgel over it's head, and prepared the deadly strike. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly deadly. Or harmful, for that matter. Since the girl ripped a plain bronze dagger from her belt and plunged it into the hairy chest. Starting from the wound, it's body began to disintegrate into yellow dust that carried in the wind.

But the young girl didn't have time to celebrate. Her vision had been smudged into a giant blue and green and white blur, and she lay down on her back to attempt to regain her sense of balance. Instead it only blurred more, her eyes rolling back and her body curling in to itself, her eyesight gradually darkening until at last she was left with nothing.

The young lady awoke at dawn, which seemed strange to her. It had been just past breakfast time when that monster had first started chasing her. A hand raised to the side of her head, the tender skin shrieking in pain and the tiny black scabs brushing against her fingers. But the main part of the wound was still oozing blood, unbeknownst to her. The girl frowned and rose to her feet, swaying slightly, and began her staggering walk to find someone, anyone, who could help her out.

She didn't know how long she walked- only how far, and that wasn't much due to the throbbing in her skull and the dizzy smears over her sight. But something, something tinted a reddish color appeared. The female lunged blinding for it, stumbling profoundly in search of the doors.

At last her fingertips came in contact with something cool and smooth, like steel. She yanked on it and a door opened, a whole new set of colors bleeding into her vision. Overwhelmed by this, the girl took a few uneven steps forward, before sinking to her knees and then the ground.

The last thing she felt was a pressure on her head; her eyelids quivered and flew open. Instantly she regretted it, as the world swirled sickeningly into one blob. She blinked once, and found something she never expected to see. A face, eyebrows pulled down in concern and a bit of annoyance, skin swarthy from much time in the sun, inky black hair cropped short, and molten brown eyes narrowed suspiciously. But then, the colors swam together even worse than before, and she closed her eyes once again, gladly sinking into oblivion.


	3. It Lives

I didn't want to help this girl. But I felt obliged to, just like one would feel obliged to cleaning up their mother's favorite china vase if they dropped it. After her eyes drifted shut once more, I slid one arm under her knee and used the other to support her back, and then I stood up. She wasn't too heavy, probably about one-fifteen. Or less, seeing as she was a little small for her face's age. I climbed the ladder to the loft awkwardly, since my hands were filled with a strange hunk of girl. Slowly I set her down on a hay-bale, judging her quietly. She looked almost cherubic, like she would fit right in one of those Italian chapels' among paintings and sculptures of the Christchild and little angel babies.

I reached out a hand and jarred her shoulder tentatively. "Hey. Wake up." I muttered. She made no move to get up. I huffed and tried pinching her arm, but she stayed still. At last I slapped her face, wincing as the sound of flesh against flesh rang out.

A ragged breath ripped from her lungs, and the Mysterious Dozing Girl jolted roughly, so hard she almost fell off the hay bale she was lying on. Her green eyes flashed open and she jerked upward, every time she exhaled sounding like she just ruptured a lung.

"Damn girl, calm down."

"I….can't breathe." She gasped out, barely even using her vocal cords. "Oh God, I can't...b-breathe…"

"Sure you can." I mumbled, giving her a smack on the back. The female shrank away from me, still choking on every breath she took. After nearly a minute she calmed and curled up in a little ball.

"Are you okay now?" I asked, moving to sit next to her so I could try to resuscitate her if she suddenly dropped dead. "No." The flame-headed lady rasped. Her jaded irises swiveled and I nearly thought she was going to pass out again, stretching my gloved hands out to catch her, but she steadied herself, dusting off her weird painted pants. "No problem…no problem at all. Just a little dizzy there, nothing serious…" She muttered, probably to herself. Weirdo.

She sat there for a while, occasionally wincing and raising a hand to her throat. Her quiet, alto voice said nothing more, and her green eyes were glued to the straw-covered floor.

"Um…do you want some water?"

The girl didn't even look at me, but slowly nodded her head. "Alright…stay here. I'll be right back."

She smirked. "I'm not going anywhere."

I jogged back to the house, where my mom was sitting on the porch swing, playing with my GameBoy that was probably from when I was in second grade. But Mom had refused to let me sell it for the already meager amount and instead played it _all the time. _No joke.

She broke away from the heavily pixilated game and grinned, pushing her beach blond hair out of her eyes. Though I was in a hurry, Mom held out an arm and invited me to sit. I hesitated, but I knew it would hurt her if I declined. And I certainly cared more about the woman who raised me than some snarky redhead.

"Uh…hey Mom." I greeted, awkwardly shifting in my seat.

My mother rested her head on my shoulder and ran a hand through my black hair. "You look so much like your father." She mused, then smiled. "Except your skin and your eyes. You know when you were a baby you were pale? Then I let you go outside and you tanned up pretty quick."

I grimaced. My mother loved talking about Dad; it was almost like she idolized him, though I resented him for abandoning her and me on this dump with the title of 'farm.' Sure, Sammi and her folks helped us repair it all the time, but the paint was still peeling and the cows were always trying to chew on my gloves.

Which I did not allow.

"You know, Mom…I was thinking about camping out in the barn. You know, just so I could watch out for Bertha and her calf." Bertha was that cow that had a calf not too long ago, which my mother was still wondering about a name for. She winked and nodded. "Sure. Just wear bug spray and don't get stepped on." The blond woman clapped me on the shoulder and sent me on my way.

I made sure to cram some alcohol and peroxide into my sleeping bag, along with a clump of bandages and a few bobby pins to hold it there. As usual, I filled up this huge water bottle and packed the first aid kit, which also had a pack of smelling salts Mom had bought from this gypsy a couple years before. I also remembered to grab a roll of paper towels and dashed back to the barn and into the loft.

She had drifted back to sleep again, on the floor with her head on the hay. I rolled my eyes and dug around the first-aid kit, but stopped.

It'd be better if she was unconscious while I cleaned that giant wound on her temple. I wouldn't want someone pouring peroxide on something that painful-looking while I was fully awake. I shrugged, and went to work.

Mainly, it was pretty clean. Just deep- very deep. As soon as the job was done and the bandages were stuck on her head, I waved that little sack of herbs in front of her nose and she coughed back to life.

MDG, as I'll call her from now on, tilted her head at me, as if contemplating if she should try to stagger out of this barn and hope I didn't try to murder her or something. But after I handed her the water bottle and she chugged it like there was no tomorrow, it seemed she thought we were best buds.

She leaned back on the haybale and beamed at me like I was her favorite person on this whole damn planet. Delirious, probably. Everybody at school except Sammi (who, in my opinion, just wanted to hook up with me) wouldn't have given if a shit if I hung myself from the basketball hoop. Hell, they'd probably start chucking joints at me.

But whatever.

I sat down on the floor across from MDG, rubbing my perpetually skinned knees through my ratty jeans. The redhead tilted her head at me, at which I answered with an indignant 'What?'.

"I don't know who you are." She smiled faintly, and folded her legs so she sat Indian style on the cool, straw-strewn floor.

"Name's Noah." I muttered, looking at the water bottle on the floor and the crimson stains on the floor from the girl's blood.

"I'm Kathryn. What state am I in?"

Kathryn. Much too normal of a name for such a freaky girl. "Maryland."

She sucked in a sharp intake of breath. "Maryland? Wow."

I shrugged and looked at my gloved hands. Kathryn moistened her lips and moved on. "Did you see..." She shifted her body, lifting a pale hand to bite her nails. "The…the, uh…my attacker?"

"Nope. All I saw was you, out cold on my floor."

She winced. "I'm really sorry. If you want me to, I could just go."

I chuckled. "Yeah, sure. With that thing on your head?" She scowled and raised a hand to her temple at my words.

"You bandaged it."

"Yeah, I don't want blood all over the barn. I'll be the one who has to clean it. Anyway, how'd you get that thing."

Kathryn tucked a strand of scarlet hair behind her ear. "Spiked club." She whispered.

"Damn. I didn't know people still had those things."

A moment of silence passed, before Kathryn hissed a curse under her breath. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that!"

"Well, you did."

A scowl tainted her childlike face. Before she had a chance to speak again, I heard a voice from the bottom floor of the loft.

"Noah?" My mother. I winced, lifted a finger to my lips to signal Kathryn to be quiet, then hopped back to my feet and made my way down to the bottom floor.

"Yeah?" I muttered, trying to keep the irritation from my voice. I was frustrated; just as I might have gotten vital information on how the hell Curly Top landed in the floor of my barn, Mom called.

"Noah…"Mom was standing in the middle of the barn, eyes locked on the bloodstains on the wood floor, but I had a feeling that those weren't what she was talking about.

"Is someone…here?" She whispered, as if every word hurt her. Her straight face was what scared me; my mom never looked that serious. I sighed and nodded slowly. No use hiding it now.

"Are they…a bit…not normal?"

I shrugged. "She's weird."

Mom stuck her hands in the pockets of her distressed jeans. "Bring her down." Her tone was firm. I complied, heading back up to the loft and lifting up Kathryn, slinging her arm around my neck. She looked at me quizzically, but I shrugged nonchalantly, though on the inside I was freaking out.

Something, I knew, was about to happen.


	4. The Strangest Chain of Events in my Life

_a note from anne;; _

_hey guys! so sorry this is late, but it took me a while because i had a field trip and i had to prepare. i went, and it was fun, but now it's crunch time at school. exams are coming up and i'll be cramming. so don't worry if the next few chapters are late, i still love this story. _

_another tidbit, this takes place right after the last olympian so the events in the lost hero and son of neptune never took place and never will. jason, piper, leo, frank, hazel, ella, and the roman camp half-blood do not exist. personally i think the new series is nothing compared to the old so ha. _

_plus the prophecy about the seven will be turned into my own. so ha._

_but i own nothing but my own events and characters, which are noah and kathryn and other people i will mention later on._

_also, i want to mention my beloved reviewers, __**MorningStar1740, ForeverPurpleAndInLove, **__and one precious anon. love you so much3_

I managed to tote Kathryn down the ladder, trying not to fall with the extra weight. I heard her begin to hyperventilate at the sudden introduction of being fully upright once again, and, honestly, I didn't know what to do. So I decided on an awkward pat on her shoulder, which became even more precarious since I was pretty much carrying her. Once I reached solid ground, my mother raked Kathryn over with her piercing gaze, who cringed into me, a gesture I found completely childish and pointless. It was my _mom_, for Christ's sake. "Is that your mother?" She breathed in my ear.

"Yep." I muttered, fidgeting so she didn't lean so heavily on me. But, alas, it didn't turn out so well. Kathryn lurched forwards, but I grabbed her shirt and yanked her even closer.

Mom slowly walked over to the red-haired girl. She reached towards Curly Top's hand, where I spotted a thin silver bracelet. The main part was normal enough, but the part that showed, the design, was certainly peculiar. A longbow, flexibly bent to fit her wrist.

Mom stared into Kathryn's eyes. "Where's your quiver, Half-Blood?"

Half-Blood?

The girl that I was practically carrying flinched visibly. "I…I lost it."

"I found it." My mom held out a cone-shaped pack, the nock ends of arrows sticking up, the three feathers attached to it waving as if to say hello to the owner. Kathryn grabbed it and slid the two straps over her shoulders, then clipped them together in the middle. Now it was my turn to be curious.

Mom sighed and turned to me. "Noah…this is going to be hard to believe. But there is a beast outside that our little visitor lured out here. It's not a normal one, so don't freak out when you see it. And don't try to use the rifle, it won't work. Use this-" She handed me the hilt of a sword, with nothing attached but a tiny sheath. I stared at it uncomprehendingly, and cautiously took off the sheath. A wicked-looking blade erupted from the hilt, one that would have stabbed Kathryn in the stomach had I not held it out a little ways further.

"Whoa." The girl beside me whispered. I had no words for how cool that looked.

My mom opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, the roof was ripped off.

Literally. Gone. A matter of 'now you see it, now you don't.' My mother scrambled backwards, I nearly dropped Kathryn, and the latter screamed, "Holy SHIT!"

It was most definitely a 'Holy SHIT!' moment. Not because suddenly rain was pouring down on us, but because the face that had peeked out from behind the walls of the barn. A giant, ugly face covered in hair and drilled with bloodshot eyed stared down at us. It rumbled in pleasure and reached down a shaggy arm. I had no time to dodge until I found myself squeezed in a gargantuan, sweaty hand. I heard my mother screaming and a whooshing sound that I guessed was Kathryn's bow. I sure hoped that she had gained a little strength in that time.

The creature reared back for a moment, squealing in pain and clawing at the arrow that had just sprouted from his eye. It glanced around wildly, squinting through the arrow shaft impaled deep in his eye and trying to find the archer. I took the chance to plunge my brand new sword into the giant meaty thumb wrapped around my waist.

Instantly I heard a wail and felt air rushing past me. But before I could register that I was falling, I was standing on the ground, as if I hadn't just plummeted about thirty feet. Mom grasped an unsteady Kathryn by the shoulders, the latter with her pale birch bow extended with a matching arrow strung with three feathers nocked and ready to fly. Quickly the giant recovered, and, with a malevolent glare, grabbed Kathryn by the arm and hung her upside-down, while she cried out in pain and wiggled furiously. Fury overtook me; I had just snatched this girl from the brink of death, and no way in hell was she going to die here. I felt a prickling sensation in my shoulder which wound around my arm and to my hand, and I drove my sword hilt-deep into the giant's thigh.

It let out an eardrum-shattering caterwaul, and disintegrated in to shiny yellow. Quickly I slapped the sheath on my blade and caught Kathryn in my arms, carefully letting her place her feet on the ground and hooking an arm around her waist. "You okay?" I mumbled.

"Fine." Came her whispered reply.

Mom approached us from behind and shoved us towards her car, a forest green Jeep with chipped paint a spray-painted smiley face on the back windshield. I glanced at her quizzically, still shocked by the sudden appearance of weird monster/giant thing. "Get. In. The. Car." She hissed under her breath, taking Kathryn by the arm and shoving her roughly into the passenger side. Quickly she leaned towards the younger girl and whispered in her ear. Kathryn said something back to her and Mom nodded gratefully. She slammed the door and embraced me with a passion, wiping something from her cheek.

That surprised me. My mother never cried. In all the time I had known her, Karen Matthews had never shed a tear in front of me, not even when her beloved horse Darling died that she had loved since she was a child. Now she was, all of her pent up emotions streaming down her face in the form of salty moisture. She grasped my shoulders and smiled sadly. "I can't explain, now. But that monster's brethren are after you. They're coming, and I now realize I can't hide you anymore. Kathryn will tell you where to go, and whatever you do, don't come back until she says you can."

"Mom…" I muttered, but before I could say anything else, she shot me a look that clearly stated I needed to leave, _now_. So, in I climbed into the dark green Jeep and shoved the keys in the ignition, completely and utterly confused.


End file.
